established in 2005

christmas books for children this advent season

A few months back, I saw this idea on Pinterest and loved the thought of having Christmas kid lit available for Sam to read during the Advent season. Instead of using a basket, I decided to wrap the books up, number them accordingly, and display them in our children’s library bookcase.

Each night of Advent, after we finish our devotions and light our candles, Sam gets to open one of these books. The best part about using books for gifts is that each day his collection grows, and by the end of Advent, he has a wonderful Christmas library to enjoy!

Since Sam was born, it has been a tradition for us to buy a new Christmas book (or two!) each December to give him as a gift. We have a nice, small collection but are far from having enough books for each day of Advent. To solve this problem, in early November, I reserved from the library the rest of the books that I would need in order to make sure we were covered (I also wanted to allow enough time so that once I checked them out, I could reserve them through Advent)!

A number of you have e-mailed me and requested the list of books that we are using. I’m sure this list will probably grow and change a bit from year to year as our children get older (there are so many good ones out there!), but here are the ones we chose for this Advent season (some better than others, of course).

Oh, and one more thing, we will only be in town through December 16th before we begin our annual, month-long tour of Texas, so we needed only 16 books this year, instead of the usual 25.

The Innkeeper, a poem written by our pastor from the perspective of the Innkeeper at Bethlehem. We already owned this book and even though it was written for an older audience, we’re interested to see how Sam responds to it. We’ll read it together as a family and discuss the pictures.

I’m excited that a number of you might start this little tradition as well! And please share with me some of your favorite Christmas kid lit that I might not have listed, we’re always looking for more to check out at the library.

It’s not a book, but it’s been a BIG deal when each of the kids has been able to read the nightly readings that go with our Noel Calendar all by themselves.

Some non-Advent Christmas books that we like are–
“The Polar Express” by Chris Van Allsburg
“The 12 Days of Christmas Pop-up Book” by Robert Sabuda
“The Night Before Christmas Pop-Up Book” by Robert Sabuda
“The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe” by CS Lewis Because Father Christmas makes an appearance, it’s a “Christmas book”

We are doing this advent book idea this year too! It has been so fun! One of the best Christmas books we have is called God Gave Us Christmas by Lisa Tawn Bergren. I will check out the Song of the Stars.